


harmless bullets

by tevna



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Mentions of War, literally how many AUs can one fanfic hold
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2576249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tevna/pseuds/tevna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The red line shook as Derek's name engraved itself onto my skin in cruelly beautiful cursive, matching the one on his wrist that spelled out Braeden.  After the timer, after that swirling red line, having a name on your wrist was the last step. It meant that you were in the  possession of great love. It's the type of love you looked at your parents and wanted to see. It was the type of love you saw in the fairytales and then in movies. It was the type of love that made everything else seem pale in comparison. It was just one of those things you had to fight for to get. And to keep. And I had that. My head started to hurt. Without thinking, I reached to trace the letters. Once our skin made contact, his breath went backwards and my heart lurched forward. The silence between us was electric before he broke it.<br/>"Well shit," he whispered "this soulmate stuff is no joke."</p><p>An historical soulmate college AU. Late 1960s Draeden. Vietnam War era Draeden. Still a werewolf Derek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a Wednesday, it was sunny, and I had just finished an intense debate on the merit of Shakespeare's literature with my classmates (I personally found the majority of his work wonderfully crafted, but still his earlier works tend to be very grating).  I'd been very aware of the clock on my arm since it hit 24 hours and counting. I felt understandably nervous but calm because I'd known this was going to happen. And at that moment, it was in less than five minutes.

"I'm so excited for you. You're lucky. This is the best time to meet your soulmate." Kira, who had 5 years left, grumbled under her breath. I snorted, because she did not sound excited. I just chalked that up to her being angsty over hers. She sighed, and I knew that I was right.

"Maybe I am lucky. But I am older than you, so technically I'm just average." I shrugged, trying to not get myself worked up.

"Braeden, but you are in fact the luckiest girl in the world. Trust me, it's no better to meet them younger. You're so lucky." Lydia shook her head. I didn't know her as long as I knew Marin and Kira, but I did know that she met her soulmate in high school and that he wasn't drafted, but volunteered to join the army. She proudly wore his dog tags around her neck and read his letters over and over again. But I get that it's torture for her, the fact that he's not really here and somewhere so dangerous.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Lydia only talked to me, in the beginning at least, because I was the only one at Carter University that knew what it was like there in Vietnam. I was three years behind on the whole college thing because I did spend a year there, directly after graduation.  I volunteered and they refused to send a black woman as a soldier but asked if I wanted to be a nurse. I said, only if they send me to Vietnam. 

 When people asked how I got my scars, I always tell a different war story every time.  I don't tell them the truth. I mean, it's 100% true that the army hospital was actually hell on Earth. My first day, I had to amputate an officer's leg and watch a Vietnamese woman who had been raped by a soldier refuse to breastfeed her month-old baby. War horrors were a very big part of who I was. But none of that had anything to do with my scars.

"What if he's the big butcher from Charlie's?" Marin poked my clock arm. "You ever think about that? I mean, what if you're not attracted to him. You're stuck."

"I won't be stuck," I rolled my eyes at my longest friend. "Besides, we've all met Harry before and my clock didn't run out. You forgot how they work, not seeing yours for so long."

Marin rolled her eyes back at me and I smiled at her. Marin was part of the National Anti-Soulmate Commission and had been proudly wearing a band over her clock for the past 3 or so years as an act of defiance. She was fiercely against what she calls, the expectations of the government and man over things as fickle as affection, love, and desire. She even showers with it. I'd say the whole activist scene was definitely Marin's thing, where she felt most comfortable.

Carter University being the place I felt most comfortable was surprising in and of itself. CU was a relatively young university, just shy of 40 years old, and progressive as hell.  The only place I'd seen so many different types of people was on the hot summer days I worked at my aunt's bookstore by the boardwalk on the shore, back home.              

We were passing the bus stop on the way to lunch after class at Charlie's BBQ Diner, not the best choice but the only restaurant outside of campus that would seat all of us. That's when Marin dropped the copy of The Catcher in the Rye I'd loaned her. Which wasn't a big deal. I wasn't that attached to Holden's rambling being treated as prose. Until I realized that my book was at the feet of someone else. She'd dropped the book a teacher almost got fired for right in front of a group of white men. Not that we were scared, but this was a dangerous situation.

I held my breath and couldn't help but be worried, not after what's been happening this week across campuses. Maybe CU could be next. I wanted to keep my head down for awhile and not think about how me and the rest of my friends could easily be next to get attacked in broad daylight. Sure, we were up East and at an integrated college but this was still a group of white men and we didn't know their disposition.

The one who had my book between his feet  face showed no recognition of it and Marin cursed under her breath. Stubborn as she was, she kept her head down and didn't make eye contact, so we all did the same. I saw a pair of shoes move out of the way, and a different pair came in my peripheral vision. But I kept my eyes focused on my book and as Marin's fingers closed around the cover...  another person's fingers beat her to it. He was the tallest one behind the man with her book between his feet. He had pushed past his friend to get the book for her and the shock made her drop it again.

Marin apologized and stood up quickly, smoothing out and pulling down her skirt. She asked him for the book back in the smallest but strongest voice possible. He swallowed and handed the book back to her and she accepted. And he was smiling at her, shyly as if this was his fault.

"I'm sorry, Brae. Here you go," she said to me in a relieved voice, handing the book over.

"It's alright," I smiled, just as relieved as her.

And he looked from his friends to witness the exchange. His dark brown eyes landed on me and I thought nothing of it until he dropped his papers. He fumbled for them and turned red. I remember that I didn't think twice about bending down and helping him pick them up. I remember the confusion that rippled through us all. What did he have to be nervous about? 

He had stopped moving. The telltale red line appeared on his wrist. He was looking at no one but me. His friends snickered and guffawed behind him, clearly shocked but also amused. My blood ran cold as I looked down at my clock arm.

I had hit zero.

I remember, as pretty much all of my friends bent down and helped picked the papers up for him, a sense of fear ran through both of us. I looked down at my wrist and just to mock me, the bright red line swirled itself into a beating heart. He looked up at me and by mistake, I made eye contact. His eyes were warm but also apprehensive. Mine were probably filled with panic and fear.

The only think that made me question what happened next is the fact that if I blinked, I would have missed it. His eyes flashed red. My heart contracted. My skin felt like it was on fire. His eyes drifted down to the beginning of the scar on my neck and I wanted to throw up.

"Oh God," was all I heard myself say. "Oh God, oh God, oh God..."

I ran past all of them: my confused friends, his stupid friends dissolving into laughter, and his eyes. I ran all the way to the diner and started to hyperventilate in front of the window. I think Harry saw me and shouted something but I couldn't make sense of it because nothing was making sense. It was a nightmare. It was a mistake. This couldn't even be possible.

It wasn't so much the interracial thing. Interracial soulmates have existed since the dawn of time but they hardly ever saw them because it's  illegal, basically forbidden,  to marry in pretty much every state except 7, according to Marin's bullhorn. If you tried to work around them, some states even sentence you to death.

I remember in Vietnam, some of the soldiers' clocks ran out in front of the civilian women. Also in Vietnam, they had words on their arms instead of clocks and the ones with English on their arms were forbidden from contact with soldiers period, by law. Those were stories that usually end in disaster. If you drew a hand like this, you basically have to either live without your soulmate and settle for love with other people who couldn't be with their soulmates or hideaway in secret, probably somewhere in solitude.

Scary, yes? But doable. That wasn't it.

It was what I _saw_. What I had to leave home for. Why I volunteered for the army.

What I knew.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kira shook her head. "Oh no. This is bad. This is so bad. What are you going to do? Why did my clock change? What if anyone else finds out? What if your family finds out? What if he finds out that you, a mercenary, hang out with banshees and kitsunes and druids? We don't have space to add emissary or dead girlfriend on our goddamn business cards!" was what she managed to ramble out by the time we reached my dorm room.

Everyday for a couple weeks, I noticed him while I was on the way to lunch. He was always standing there at the bus stop across the street from Charlie's. It didn't matter whether I was alone, with friends, in the rain, or anything else etc. I don't think he was a student at CU because I never saw him around campus, but he was always there.

Each time, he was buzzing with nervousness, I could feel it. Even as I passed by him on the other side of the street, I couldn't help but notice he looked at me as if I was something to stare at. I wasn't sure but this was probably what being stalked felt like and it made me feel nervous and God, was it dangerous. I didn't understand how this could happen to me.

Kira was very upset I wouldn't talk to him. She had years until she met her soulmate and she couldn't wait. Plus, she liked my soulmate (whatever his name was) very much for what he did the day Marin dropped my book.  She didn't get it though.

What Kira didn't get was that it wasn't all about him being white (although it was a superficial factor). It was about the fact that his eyes were red, I saw them, the same exact shade of red that the man who gave me these  scars had. He was one of them, he had to be.

Me coming from a long line of emissary tragedy stories, emissaries who've been betrayed and killed by their pack didn't help. Me and how I got these scars didn't help.

Me being a mercenary didn't help either, especially since I was already wary about the supernatural aspect being brought in since day one. Ever since Marin introduced Lydia and then later Kira to me, the supernatural cases have been plentiful and just as dangerous. Mercenary work was complicated enough, but tossing a banshee, druid, and kitsune into the mix was about the best and worst thing to ever happen to my career.  

It started out simple, it always does, but then...life hits you with white werewolf that you might have to kill one day for money and who might kill you as your soulmate. And you can't find the courage to tell anybody, not even the people you go on missions with.

"You're being ridiculous," Kira had had enough one day. "Just because someone's gonna stare if you're holding hands doesn't mean you need to be afraid."

"Kira, the worst possible thing to happen just happened. Imagine telling your family, who are starting to call, that your soulmate is white." She rolled her eyes at me. "They're gonna want me to move to Alaska."

"Yeah, but that's stupid. Still wouldn't be able to get married there." she teased.

"And if I do try to just be with him, it'll be hell." I shook my head. "You remember the Lovings. They were basically deported. Imagine what they'd do to us. The same damn thing."

"Ok, I'm not naive or anything, yeah it'll be tough. Yeah, you're gonna have people who don't get it and yeah, it's gonna be a bitch. But really think about it, Brae. Your family doesn't live in a area like that. CU isn't an area like that. So all you gotta do is not live in an area like that. You were put you together for a reason."

"God wants me dead, that's why." My voice got lower as the bus stop got into my line of vision. Yep, there he was. He was looking down at his briefcase, one leg shaking up and down. My red soul mark went crazy, spinning in circles.

"Alright, if you don't talk to him, I will." Kira threatened. "I would not mind dating him for 4 years, 3 months, 5 days-"

I cut her off mid-sentence. "You wouldn't." That was true. She wouldn't date him. Even though he was cute. He knew how to pull off business casual and fill out a suit, which is more than I can say for the boys of Carter. I noticed him a lot now, out of the corner of my eye. He usually wears contacts but sometimes, glasses. He was strong. He carried that briefcase with him every day so far without fail. His hair was jet black. His eyes were honey brown, always knotted together in thought. Sometimes, I wanted to know what he was thinking about.

Probably about whether or not it's worth the trouble to speak to me, bother to find out my name. A question with options. Probably always chooses no.

Kira gave me a defiant look and I knew I was in trouble. She grabbed my arm and raised her chin high and started to cross the street. The red line on my wrist was doing backflips and cartwheels. Despite my wild protests, we just got closer and closer to him, her grip on my arm would not loosen until I was right in front of him.

And all I could see were those goddamn red eyes. The same ones that'd been floating in my head back home, in Vietnam, in my nightmares. The mark of a monster. The eyes of a killer. Something was lethal. Something was deadly. Somebody lied. I was not safe. I was not alright.  My throat tightened up as the overwhelming feeling of danger and nausea swept over me. And we were just getting closer and closer towards it.

"I'm going to throw up." I started to pant. Kira, bless her, stopped moving me immediately. But it was too late. We were on the edge of the bus stop and I was hyperventilating, borderline hysteria. All I could see was blood everywhere, on my hands and on my dress and on my books and on the floor and in his eyes.

"Braeden? Brae, hey?" Kira's voice had not one ounce of panic, she was just trying to soothe me. She placed me on the side of the bus stop, trying to get me to sit down.

"Is your friend okay?" I heard a man say. "Is she alright?"

"She's fine." Kira said. "She's a disabled war veteran, something must have triggered her or something."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" It was him. It had to be him. It had to be my soulmate, whatever his name was. Trying very hard to  not be dismissed by us. Kira paused for awhile, I heard a gasp, and suddenly I just felt her energy shift.

"Maybe." she breathed out. Her hands faded away and replacing hers were his strong ones. He took one of my hands in his.

"Hey," I heard. "Open your eyes. Look at me."

My eyes blinked open before I had the chance to think about noncompliance. There he was, briefcase by his feet, papers a mess yet again. He had a pen mark on his cheek. He cut himself shaving, but it was healing. Oh god. My vision went fuzzy and out-of-focus. Kira was standing behind him, worriedly.

He placed a hand on my cheek. The blood blocking my vision was instantly gone.

"You're okay." His lips curled up in a smile and I was finished. The excessive resistance I'd shown went to complete pieces. What was once a bright fire died down to a single flame.

"Hi." I whispered, shakily.

He looked at me, with an unreadable expression on his face, but then he started smiling at me again. And I, not being able to help it, smiled back for a second before I realized I could never tell my parents that I'd fallen in love with a white werewolf in less than 5 minutes because he smiled at me. 

I wondered if this was his or my plan the whole time, to have him watch me walk to lunch until I graduated? Until I could find the strength to tell them or anybody? Until peoples' minds change? Until the day I could face the inevitability of how strong his grip on my hand was but how it didn't hurt one bit? How he looked at me and I felt warm?

"I have to go." I said, because that day was not today. And before he could protest, I looked at Kira for a way out. She looked a bit shaken, even more shaken than me. "We both just need to lie down or something."

"Wait," he looked from the both of us. His eyes darted to my wrist and back to me. "Hey, uh...are you free, later on? Maybe this weekend?"

I sighed. "I don't know yet." That wasn't a lie. You're never actually sure if you're on-call until you are.

"I just wanted to...you know, talk." He looked down at the ground and shrugged at it.

"I know." I swallowed and tried to sound non-committal. "We'll see."

And before I could say another word, I turned on my heel and walked back to safety briskly. Kira was hot on my heels. I could tell she wanted to tell me something but she couldn't get the words out. I almost didn't want to know what it was.

"Braeden," she squeezed out. "Look at my clock."

I spun around quickly and stopped on the middle of the sidewalk. Instead of 5 years, like it's always been it read 2 months.

"Oh shit," was all I could say. A time-jump was so uncommon. A time-jump is always significant no matter what. "How long has it been like that?"

"I don't know. Ever since I looked at your soulmate and his eyes glowed back at me. They glowed red, Braeden. I've only ever dealt with kitsunes and the monsters Marin makes me deal with," Kira looked at me, desperately searching my eyes for answers. I kept my eyes focused on her clock.  "Tell me, Brae, what the hell do red eyes mean?"

"I know what it means." I whispered, avoiding eye contact. "It means he's a werewolf. An alpha werewolf. He's got his own pack."

Kira shook her head. "Oh no. This is bad. This is so bad. What are you going to do? Why did my clock change? What if anyone else finds out? What if your family finds out? What if he finds out that you, a mercenary, hang out with banshees and kitsunes and druids? We don't have space to add emissary or dead girlfriend on our goddamn business cards!" was what she managed to ramble out by the time we reached my dorm room.

I fumbled with the keys as she kept on ranting and ranting. "I don't know, Kira, no really listen I just don't--." I hissed and before I could place the key in, the door swung open. It was Lydia, my roommate, and Marin.

"Shit," I whispered to myself.

"We know about Derek." Lydia rubbed her arm.

So that was his name.

"Who's Derek?" I tried playing dumb. It didn't work.

"Derek Hale." Marin swallowed. "He's your soulmate. He's a lawyer at his uncle's firm at nights, student teaches at the law school across campus during the day. Takes the bus everywhere. Owns a loft downtown. Is a werewolf."

"Oh lord," I groaned.

"We have a problem." Marin whispered calmly. Way too calmly. I exchanged a worried look with Kira.

"I know, guys, I know. And I' m trying to--"

"He's in danger." Lydia interjected.

"But we just saw him a few minutes ago," Kira shook her head. "He looked fine."

"Or he will be." Lydia was still very new to all of this "imminent danger and death" stuff and it showed. "I don't really know. I just know...it's not gonna be good.

"So basically," Lydia looked down at the ground and not at me."What you're telling me is he could be dying right now."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Surrounded by darkness, I began to think about all the things death could give me. A way out of working under Peter at the shittiest law firm known to man. A way out of a world where my soulmate literally wants nothing to do with me. A way out of having to pay rent next week. A way out of here. At this point, when faced with being strung up in someone's basement like this and death, the latter of the two seemed like the preferable option."
> 
> Derek's POV.

On my way to the bus stop after working overtime (because rent was due next week), I wasn't thinking about what would happen if someone shot a tranquilizer full of mountain ash at me right now. I wasn't thinking about being dragged into someone's basement. I wasn't thinking about being electrocuted. Those were the farthest things on my mind. I was thinking about my paycheck, what I was going to make for dinner, how much my soulmate hated me, how much my wolf wanted her, whether or not she or her friend saw my eyes glow.

Knowing Peter, he has probably started to notice my absence. Probably already trying to track me down, so I found it silly to worry so much because my kidnappers didn't want him dead. At least, I think so because they've been upstairs arguing in Spanish.

So far, they've yelled the name Kate five times.

Each time I heard her name echo off the walls, I remembered a little bit more about her, things I've wanted to forget for a long time. What it was like before and after Kate. The mysterious older woman.The constant reminders of her made the idea of being electrocuted a joke. 

So despite how much my skin was crawling and I wanted to to, I wasn't allowed to die. A minute ago, I heard the woman telling the man that I was, under no circumstances, going to be killed until they got what they wanted from me. I wish I knew what that was because I honestly have nothing left to give at this point.

Surrounded by darkness, I began to think about all the things death could give me. A way out of working under Peter at the shittiest law firm known to man. A way out of a world where my soulmate literally wants nothing to do with me. A way out of having to pay rent next week. A way out of here. At this point, when faced with being strung up in someone's basement like this and death, the latter of the two seemed like the preferable option.

I picked up the sound of a raspy, low, rumble. A motorcycle? There's no way Peter would have been able to even reach Scott. There's no way Scott would have gotten here so fast. Then again, what did I know about being a true alpha? Plus, I didn't smell Stiles so I knew it wasn't Scott. I tried to pick out a scent and was left with nothing.

Which was another thing death could relieve me from. Not knowing what the fuck was happening with his powers. It was like they were slowly disappearing. My eyes still glowed red, it's just that it was getting harder to control my senses.

As soon as I finished that thought, I was overwhelmed  by a certain smell. It was a combination of apple and something smoky. It was her. My soulmate. I was 100% sure of it, but still looked at my soulmark for confirmation, which was tumbling around on my wrist for her.

What the hell was she doing here?

I heard one low click. Then an explosion. 7 shots. A couple of screams. Multiple thuds on the floor. A curse word or two in Spanish.  Another low click again before she ran toward the basement and flew down the stairs.

I tried to blink back shock. Of all the girls in the whole entire world, I'd ended up with the type of girl who rode a motorcycle into battle and carried a gun into highly dangerous situations that concerned supernatural creatures. Of course. Why would anybody else be my soulmate?

"Derek!" she yelled, giving me no time to process any of the new information I was given. My heart was racing at the speed of light, just at the sight of her sprinting over and removing the shackles from my wrists. I fell to my knees and remained there for a second.

"You need to go, now." she said harshly and calmly. I made eye contact with her blood splattered blue jeans and felt a little bit sick. "They're going to regain consciousness any second."

"What did they want from me?"

"Nothing good,"

"What are you doing here?"

"I don't have any time to explain everything. Right now, you need to get up! Can you get up?" She placed a hand on my shoulder and the world started to melt away. Her fingers immediately reached to the back of my neck and curled, trying to pull me up by my shirt collar. I looked up at her and rose from my knees, standing shakily on my two feet. She gave me a glimmer of a smile (I almost missed it) and took my arm around her shoulder, as she tried to pull me up the steps.                                                              

"If I fall behind," I coughed. "go on without me, I'll be fine."

"Don't be an idiot," she muttered and we started moving. She was stronger than I thought she would be. I don't know what I was expecting, I didn't come from a family full of small, dainty, normal women. I don't think I'd know what to do with one if I saw one, and she was definitely not one of them.

As we reached the top of the steps, the door swung open. The girl that was there with my soulmate this afternoon and two other girls were staring at us, wide-eyed. One of them looked at me and immediately grabbed my arm to help my soulmate pull me up. The redheaded girl sucked her lip between her teeth.

"Guys, we need to go and we need to get him out of here now." she whispered to my soulmate.

"He's not healing well." She pointed at my bloody shirt and the little patch of exposed skin. I looked down. I hadn't noticed, but the wound from the mountain ash bullet had yet to heal. In fact, it looked uglier than it first did. "He needs a doctor, Marin."

"Brae, he can't need a doctor right now." the girl I supposed was Marin said, exasperatedly. "How the hell are we going to explain how he got a mountain ash bullet wound in the room full of unconscious people to white doctors?"

"You know what I meant. I know you did." My soulmate--Brae--insisted. "I'm taking him to our doctor, with or without you, and I'll make sure to tell big brother that you say hi."

"Fine, go without me."

"Marin, she can't just stick him on the back of her motorcycle! You're driving us!" the one who looked vaguely familiar exclaimed suddenly. "So, can both of you just shut up take and take me and Braeden's dying soulmate to Deaton because I just went from 5 years to 2 months and it's counting down again and I need to know why!"

Deaton?

"Guys," the redhead sighed out. "He doesn't look so good."

The last thing I remember seeing was that girl's clock, counting down.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wondered how much he heard. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking. I wondered if he knew that for a second, the moment Deaton took him from my arms, that I almost felt like crying because I knew he was dying, I knew it before Lydia and Kira and Marin and Deaton and probably before he did. And I thought it was going to happen right in front of me right now. And that I was so glad that it didn't. And that I wouldn't think twice about protecting him in exchange for nothing in return, just for the sole fact that people were dying way too much these days. I looked down at the floor again."
> 
> Braeden's POV (again).

"Is he going to be okay?" Marin whispered to me as Deaton wiped his wound clean. I hadn't left the counter since the moment we half-drug half-carried an unconscious Derek in. Lydia and Kira had scattered, looking for Deaton's library. They were currently passed out in front of books outlining famous time-jumps in history. Apparently, all they gathered was that time jumps had a strong correlation with an early death.

"Deaton said that he's gonna be fine," I breathed out. "He doesn't know why Derek isn't healing though."

"Lydia thinks he's dying." Marin told me, straight out. I looked down at my jeans. With Marin, there was no time for small talk or cushioning any blows. Especially at this time, I could tell she just wanted to round us all up and get out of her brother's office. They didn't always have the best relationship, and ever since Marin became really active in the Civil Rights movement and the Anti-Soulmate movement it hadn't gotten better. She prefers to avoid contact with him at all costs, even though he's proven to be invaluable to literally all of us.

"Did you hear me? I said Lydia thinks he's..."

"I heard you, Marin." I made eye contact with her,  my voice so small that I didn't recognize it. Derek's wound was being tended to not 10 feet away and I focused on Deaton's movements, slow and deliberate, as he extracted the bullet from his side. A yellow puss began to ooze out and I looked down again.  

 "What are you gonna do about it?" she asked, sighing. "Because if he's not healing and people are after him for God knows what reason, you don't have a lot of time left. Shouldn't you have Al marrying you right now?"

"When did he become a minister?"

"That's not the point, Brae, and I'm serious. And I know I don't get this whole soulmate thing, but him not healing combined with Lydia's banshee powers and Kira's time jump... isn't that a bad thing, aren't you worried?"

"Of course I am!" I shrugged. "But...come on, Marin! Look at him and look at me, we'd literally never work. I don't want to be a martyr and if I date him or God forbid, try to marry him, we're getting arrested, deported, or whatever else and it's not fair to either of us for that to happen."

"It's not fair to yourself either." Marin shrugged. "I know I'm one to talk and you might think I'm a hypocrite, but it's different for you, Brae, and you know why. You open your heart up to love. You need to give it, just as bad as you need to receive it. That's not a bad thing and you shouldn't have to deny yourself the one person in the world who is guareented to do that for you."                      

"His family could have owned me. Us." I whispered out harshly, worried that an unconscious Derek could hear me. "I could have been his slave. What if we were soulmates back then? They would have killed me. I could have been his dead slave soulmate and he'd write a play about it and make money off me."

"That's not true."

"Still, Marin. This is dangerous. Very dangerous. And I don't know what he's like at all, I mean I don't want to be a flavor for the rest of my life, if it's with him. I don't want to just be the black girl he's trying out. I want to be seen as a person with values and opinions and thoughts and substance, especially by my soulmate."

"What do you want us to do, Brae? We can't say that not all white guys are bad and this guy's a nice perfect white ivory savior whose gonna come in and stop the war and end racism and fix all these passed-down insecurities for you, if that's what you're asking for. I'm not saying he's not like that at all." Marin suddenly quipped."Sure, he might have a thing like that for you but not because he's _willingly_ belittling you and every black woman out there. Best case scenario, he could just be doing it because he's ignorant. And, you know, if you think like that you might as well start thinking that  he might just assume all the stereotypes about us are true. He might just want to keep you as a mistress and marry a nice white girl just to please his family and so people won't lynch you. Keep you as the maid and eventual nanny." Marin picked a nail as she casually detailed my worst nightmare.

"It's not even the white thing that has me the most worried," I shook my head. "It's the werewolf thing.  Maybe he subconsciously thinks he's better than me, just because he is a werewolf who could kill me with his bare hands and all I know how to do is fire a gun and scream. Not because he's evil, but because that's the way it's always been for him, you know?"

"Or he may decide to never see you again once people start finding out. Worst case scenario, that might be the type of guy he is."

Nope, that was my worst nightmare.

"Exactly." I shrugged. "I can't do it, I just can't."

"Talking to us about it or hallucinating about your mom's reaction might not be what you want to do if you're looking for answers." Marin shrugged. " You need to start talking to him. We know less about white guys during mating season than you do. And no offense girl, but if it's anything like this I'd like to keep it that way." Martha shuddered at the thought of my reality.

"Are you saying that Braeden should try to get to know her dying white werewolf soulmate?" Deaton came over and placed a hand on her forehead, which she swatted away almost immediately. "Are you feeling sick? Should it be you on that table?"

"So he is dying?" she asked. I sucked in my lip and looked at him once more. He looked so...I don't know. Like himself. Like the day he did when we first met. When he smiled at me. He didn't look like he was close to death besides the ugly patched up bruise on his side.

"No. On the record, he's not. It's just not that he's dying, per-say. He's not healing well." Deaton cleared his throat. I snapped my attention to him quickly. "Or at all maybe."

"Give it to us straight, Al. Is...he like, human or whatever?" Marin prompted. Deaton shrugged.

"I don't know yet, Marin. It's too difficult to tell." Deaton looked at me pointedly. "But the first year is always difficult for soulmates. Especially the supernatural. They get protective quickly. They become more aggressive and their bodies become all out of whack, their libidos becoming borderline insatiable. So it might be a result of that."

"Ew." Marin crinkled her nose. "It can't be that. He's stayed away from her for like weeks."

"Whatever it is, it doesnt matter. He will need to be protected, that's all I can offer you as treatment right now." Deaton rolled his eyes at her.

"We don't work for free, you know that." Marin sneered. Deaton shook his head, smiling to himself, which makes Marin even more pissed off at him as she begins to yell at him about something or the other and he keeps stoic.

But I wasn't paying attention to them. I was paying attention to Derek, whose eyes were open. He was short of breath and looking wildly from side to side. Before I know what came over me, I jumped off the counter and stood to the side of him. Arms wrapped around myself, I didn't touch him. I couldn't bring myself to.

He sat up all on his own and looked at me, for what I think might have been the first time since we met. His eyes, no sign of red, showed me no panic but a small amount of pain. Marin and Deaton were no longer arguing but that didn't matter because there was nothing they could say that could break my attention away at this point in time. My soulmark was steady. My heartbeat was steady. Our line of vision was steady. It lasted only a few seconds, but each passed by like a year.

I wondered how much he heard. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking. I wondered if he knew that for a second, the moment Deaton took him from my arms, that I almost felt like crying because I knew he was dying, I knew it before Lydia and Kira and Marin and Deaton and probably before he did. And I thought it was going to happen right in front of me right now. And that I was so glad that it didn't. And that I wouldn't think twice about protecting him in exchange for nothing in return, just for the sole fact that people were dying way too much these days. I looked down at the floor again.

"Hey." he whispered."You want a job?"

I looked up at him and back to Marin, whose face was priceless.   

"Derek." he held out his hand for me to take.

"Braeden." I answered him cautiously. And before my fingers could reach out and wrap around his, I felt my soulmark stitching away at my arm.

The red line shook as Derek's name engraved itself onto my skin in cruelly beautiful cursive, matching the one on his wrist that spelled out Braeden. After the timer, after that swirling red line, having a name on your wrist was the last step. It meant that you were in the possession of great love. It's the type of love you looked at your parents and wanted to see. It was the type of love you saw in the fairytales and then in movies. It was the type of love that made everything else seem pale in comparison. It was just one of those things you had to fight for to get. And to keep. And I had that. My head started to hurt. Without thinking, I reached to trace the letters on his arm. Once our skin made contact, his breath went backwards and my heart lurched forward. The silence between us was electric before he broke it.  
  
"Well shit," he whispered "this soulmate stuff is no joke."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When I looked back at him, his face was blank, his tongue ran over his lips shyly and his eyes snuck to the floor. They only made the venture up to my face once, pausing at my lips. His fingers curled into mine suddenly. I gasped because I knew that face. That faced belonged to someone who wanted to kiss you. Inching a bit closer, I heard Derek's breath shake.
> 
> And I wanted to do it. Not because he was my soulmate and I liked him or anything, just because I know how hard living in the past can be when you feel you can't go forward. And I got the feeling from all these pictures that him being a werewolf was a huge part of him since he was born even, and losing that must really blow and everything happening to Derek was making me feel sad and I didn't know how to make it better at all but I knew kissing him out of pity wasn't the way to go about it."

"Alright, now that the paperwork's all done: what are we looking for, boss?" Marin smiled, tucking the contract into Lydia's purse. Lydia was always the mule, it seemed, because she _always_ had her purse with her no matter what. I never took my purse with me on missions though.

"Right." Derek said casually in the lobby of his apartment building, leading ."Um, so this is my uncle Peter, he's gonna be paying. He owns the law firm I work at, stays in my house sometimes... and he's obsessed with financing your mission. And Peter, this is Kira, Braeden, Marin, and Lydia..." 

"Pleasure." Peter grabbed Lydia's hand and pressed a kiss  to it. She smiled awkwardly at Derek, almost as if she was in pain. Kira placed her hands in her pockets. He looked up at all of us, eyes settling on me and the name on my wrist. His smirk made me hate him.

"Let's take this upstairs."

"Well..." Derek started off, almost shyly. "If it doesn't matter to you guys either way, do you think... do you mind if I could just tell Braeden in private and she could tell all of you guys when you get back to...dorm base?"

Lydia, and Kira looked at each other, a bit puzzled.  Marin rolled her eyes at Derek and looked like he was about to tell him no.

I blinked, shocked. In the corner of my eye, I could see Peter looked at Derek with raised eyebrows, looked at me and then smiled lecherously. Oh God. My gaze didn't shift from Derek and the way he was staring at the ground, avoiding eye contact.

"No." I heard my voice say. Everyone looked up at me, even Derek. "No, I don't mind, I mean."

"Braeden!" Kira protested but Marin, making sure I was okay, put her hand on Kira's clock arm, comfortingly.

"No, it's fine. They need to do this, Kira." Marin nodded. "We'll be fine. We can wait for you here, if you want."

Peter made tutting noises. "Oh no no no girls, Derek can drive her home, can't you Derek? Unless you don't want to. Besides, one of you have got to have classes starting in a half hour?"

Lydia's eyes bulged. She'd forgotten all about her biology class that she couldn't miss. And it was her car that we came here in. She looked at me, desperately and apologetically all at the same time. 

I looked at Derek. "If you're okay with that."

"I don't have a class today." Derek answered. "I can drive you home whenever."

 Nodding, I looked towards Kira and Marin a little part of me wishing that they would insist on accompanying me upstairs or maybe waiting for the ride home because they didn't have class until 6. But they both looked at me and nodded back. Great. Just great.

"Okay, let's go upstairs then." I stood up and made way for the elevator. Once inside his spacious loft, he opened a door for me and took a hard right, leading me into a dark, bare room. All there was around us a bed, a desk, and a dresser. The lamp in the back illuminated the dim room.

The only place there was to sit was on the bed so I moved to do so. He knelt on the ground and pulled out a box from underneath the bed and opened it, picking two or three pictures from the pile. I snuck a peek at them, when he wasn't looking. I saw baby pictures with his eyes glowing at the camera, a picture of his mother and a kid who looked like Derek (but had the cutest and chubbiest cheeks in the world so it just couldn't be Derek), and a picture of Derek on the basketball team of apparently Beacon Hills High School.  

"That's where Kira graduated." He looked up at me, so startled that I'd said something that he dropped the pictures in his hands. I reached into the box and pulled out the picture of Derek and a friend in front of their high school. "California, right?"

"Yeah," Derek's lips quirked up in a little smile. "I was class of '58."

"She's in her third year now so she was probably class of '64 or '65, maybe. I'm not too sure." I shook my head, looking closely at the picture. Young Derek was smiling at me, hands shoved into his dress pants and baring all of his teeth. I felt myself smiling a bit and I hoped he wasn't looking at me. "I thought it might have had something to do with her time jump, you know. But it's still weird that you're from the same area and all. Supernatural hotspot."

 "I know what you mean, about it being weird and all. I haven't met another person from California since I moved out here." Derek shrugged.

"I was born in California." I whispered.

"Oh, shit, really? Where?"

"My momma was from Oakland. She lived there all her life until my dad came around. Then after me and my brother were born, we just starting moving around all the time." I didn't know why I was telling him this. It just seemed so natural and so fitting. I got off the bed and settled on the floor next to him, my arm brushing his.

"How many times did you move?"

"5 states, like a million different towns. 7 different schools."

"Where'd you graduate?"

"I went to 2 different high schools, one in Chicago and I graduated from Brandywine High School in Cincinnati, Ohio in '60. All I had at graduation was the worst spit curls on this side of the country, the baggiest collection of hand-me-down dresses from my cousins, and a ticket all the way to Vietnam." I said, peeking through his pictures again.

"You went to Nam?"

"Yeah. I wasn't the best military nurse in the world, but I was there. I asked to be there."

"I bet you were great." Derek said, and I felt his gaze hot on me, creeping up my neck which was growing hot. I bit my lip, unsure of how to respond so I just act like I didn't hear him and continuing to look on.

I saw a picture of baby Derek being held by a grade-school girl. I saw one of that same girl being tossed over the shoulder by Derek, both now teenaged.  

"Derek?" I was starting to shamelessly sift through the pictures, pausing at one of his family on Halloween. Derek was dressed as a little vampire. "Why did you wanna talk to me alone first?"

"Because you're my soulmate and there's some things I want to tell you myself, before you hear them from anywhere else or as part of a case report." Derek cleared his throat.

"Go on, tell me then."

"Okay....I killed my girlfriend when I was 15 years old. "

"Whoa." My eyes bulged out of my head.

"I was devastated that she wasn't my soulmate. So I tried to give her the bite, Peter said we could be together forever, soulmates or not. But it wasn't meant to be, her body was rejecting the bite and she was definitely going to die, no matter what I did. Just to end her pain, I had to."

"Okay." I said, nodding. I shouldn't have been shocked though because I knew teenage werewolves usually had a very difficult time managing their murderous tendencies. Plus, I was no damn angel. "What's next?"

"I had sex with a 21 year old werewolf hunter the year after that. A lot." Derek let out a breath.

"Okay." I nodded, trying keep my face clear of surprise or judgment.

"This. Her." he shoved pictures in my direction. It was kind of a blurry picture of a blonde woman, laughing. Then one of her smiling, a little bit seductively. Another one of her, years later, holding the hands of a little girl that looked familiar. In fact, even she was starting to look familiar.

"I haven't looked at these in a long time." Derek whispered, his gaze still piercing the back of my neck. "And when I say, long time, I mean long time."

 "Who is this?" I looked at him, annoyed that I just couldn't put a name to the face.

"She's Kate Argent. The person I want you to find."

"No kidding. Do you want us to find her dead body? Because that's all that's left of her." I shook my head.

"I know. Peter was the one who slashed her throat." I wrinkled my nose as a response. He smiled, letting out an amused breath.                                     

"And uh, there's something else before I go into Kate. The reason Peter slashed her throat is because when we were younger, Kate and some other people burned down our house. She was using me and killed 8 people. My family. The only people who survived were me, my sisters Cora and Laura, and Peter." He passed over a picture of the house. His mother and father, I assumed, were standing in front of this grand estate and smiling.

"I'm sorry." was all I could think to say right now.  He didn't respond. He stared at the wall, unable to say anything. I didn't know what to do or what to think. I didn't expect any of this from Derek and I wasn't sure how to handle it. I could tell him about my mom, make him feel a little bit better with the fact that I'm just as fucked up as he was in the family department. But it wasn't the time for something like that. This was for him.

"Tell me more about Kate." I reached out and placed my hand on his knee.

"So when Peter killed her, he was an alpha. We think that since the scratch was from an Alpha, it healed somehow and she's draining power from that Alpha source and starting to get stronger."

"Are you the Alpha source now?"

Derek hesitated.

"Not for long. My eyes started to flicker blue last night. Peter's not too happy about me losing his alpha powers."  Derek's eyes immediately snapped to the picture of Kate with ice cream in her hand. He didn't give me time to register what his eyes turning blue even met.  "I haven't been healing. I was kidnapped by the Calaveras and asked about _La Lopa_ over and over again and I acted like I didn't know what they were saying but I knew. I've known for a while that Kate wasn't dead, even at the funeral."

"It seems like you knew her really well." I stated delicately, staring at the picture of her smiling at the camera seductively.

"It was simple and complicated all at the same time." Derek rubbed his arm sheepishly. "She was all into LSD and free love and birth control and the sexual revolution, like 6 years before her time. And I was more than willing to take her up on her offers, because she wasn't my soulmate and after my last girlfriend I wasn't looking for anything serious."

I nodded, looking at her smile at him one more time with her skin almost illuminating. She was gorgeous and all but still a psychopathic murderer who literally ruined Derek's life.

"My butt hurts." Derek complained. I was caught off guard and started laughing.

"You're right." I muttered, placing the grainy pictures of Kate gingerly in the box. Derek closed the lid and stood, holding his hand out to help me up. I took it without question.

"So, you want us to find her for you. Where do you think she could be?"

"I heard the Calaveras mention something about Mexico, a temple dedicated to _La Lopa_ or something like that. But that's all I heard. I know it's a shitty starting point but..." My hand was still in his. I squeezed it, forcing him to make eye contact with me. I was beginning to understand that Derek put a lot of focus on sight, being able to look at someone and see who they are and it sucked that Derek was losing the colors in his eyes, even if the red scared the shit out of me.

"It's a great starting place, Derek." I whispered.

When I looked back at him, his face was blank, his tongue ran over his lips shyly and his eyes snuck to the floor. They only made the venture up to my face once, pausing at my lips. His fingers curled into mine suddenly. I gasped because I knew that face. That faced belonged to someone who wanted to kiss you. Inching a bit closer, I heard Derek's breath shake.

And I wanted to do it. Not because he was my soulmate and I liked him or anything, just because I know how hard living in the past can be when you feel you can't go forward. And I got the feeling from all these pictures that him being a werewolf was a huge part of him since he was born even, and losing that must really blow and everything happening to Derek was making _me_ feel sad and I didn't know how to make it better at all but I knew kissing him out of _pity_ wasn't the way to go about it.

But he looked at me like kissing me had been the only thing on his mind since he saw me that first day. The horrible thought crept over me that it probably was. He'd probably lived his life surrounded by girls who all looked the same and I was the variation.

" _That's all we are to them_." my mom's voice snaked into my brain. " _Different. Foreign. Easy. You're a new flavor, an experiment, another way to piss off his parents. You're nothing more than a nice body and a pretty face and a conquest to them and we always have been. They will do it time and time again. Do not mess around with them._ "

That was only after a white boy pulled my hair at the park when I was six. God could only imagine her speech if she knew that I was letting this one's hands grip my own. That I was even thinking of having him kiss me. But it's so weird because I knew what she said was 100% right but it didn't feel that way right now.

"Derek?" I whispered, one hazy step away from my lips falling into his.

"Yeah?" he answered, his voice came out sweet and ragged. I bit my lip for a second, wondering if I'd regret this.

"Do you think we could see a movie?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Would you hold my hand if I looked like Audrey Hepburn?"
> 
> Derek looked at me for a second, blinked, and his smooth slowly spread into a grin. In no time, his hand slid across the seats and grasped mine.
> 
> "Would you hold mine if I looked like Sidney Poitier?"
> 
> I nodded slowly and mock seriously and then I unexpectedly started to laugh. Not like a fake laugh, but the kind of laugh that racks your chest. A real one. He looked at me, shocked, but then we dissolved into laughter together within less than a minute. And along with us, all of our doubt also dissolved, as we sat there, like two teenagers giggling over this stupid joke.

He walked behind me, letting me lead like I knew where I was going (which I didn't) but also he had his hand lightly hovering over the small of my back, silently directing me. He didn't say a word to me since I suggested we go to the movies. He just grabbed the keys from the kitchen table and he tossed me my jacket and one of his own coats and Derek led me out of the building, just catching the sun setting. It couldn't have been past 5 o'clock but still it was already almost dark and the October chill was starting to creep up. I kept my arms to my side, hands grasping the warm sleeves of his heavy coat.

It smelled strongly like him. It smelled earthy, but sweet. It smelled a lot like paper fresh out a printer, I even saw some ink stains on the cuffs. A splash of cologne here and there. Smelled a little like the ground after it rained.  

He stopped me in front of a yellow car that I knew didn't belong to him, and I looked back at him briefly. He fumbled with the keys a little bit, but managed to get the car open. I grabbed the handle before he could do it for me, opened the door and sat inside.  

He drove carefully. Never taking his eyes off the road. Never making small talk. Never making a wrong turn. Completely focused, he drove us pass the CU main campus and down to Cedar Street and Main, where the movie theater and the music hall was. Cedar and Main was a popular spot for everyone around Carter. He parked in front of the ice cream parlor and I saw two girls from my English class, 1 wearing a coat with a see-through armband just so you could see that she was gonna meet her soulmate in a week I wanted to roll my eyes and puke all at the same time.

"What movie do you wanna see?" he asked me, in a low voice. He looked at me probably for the first time since we left his apartment. I shrugged, trying to remember what I saw was out in the papers.

"How about Camelot?" I offered. I didn't really want to see it but I knew all about it already so I might as well. And for a couple minutes, we talked a lot about the movie though, about how Camelot was actually a movie based off of a musical based off one of the many Arthurian fantasies I had to read for extra credit in high school. He blinked, a little taken aback by the fact that I was an English major.

"I don't know what I saw you as," he mumbled. "But it wasn't an English major."

"I'm studying to be an English teacher." I said, nodding a little bit. "And I don't know what I saw you as, but it definitely wasn't a lawyer. Did you want to be a lawyer?"

"Yeah. I actually did."  

"Why?" I crinkled my nose in mock disgust. He grinned a little bit shrugged.

"My dad or Peter didn't pressure me into anything so I'm not like trying to take over the family business or anything. I just knew, you know? Like there was never a doubt in my mind. I like the potential to do good there is with law. If you treat it right."

"Maybe one day, you'll run for president." He started laughing. "No, don't laugh! I'm serious, you would be the perfect president. And I bet a black English teacher from Oakland would go over great in the White House. Put Jackie Kennedy right to shame. "

He looked at me for a second and he said "You would be the perfect first lady." in a very low voice, all too serious. I bit my lip. Derek looked down at the steering wheel and squirmed in his seat for a second, which made me smile.

The men I'd dated prior were always cool and calm, never seemed to worry about messing up with me because they knew I wasn't the one.

But I liked the nervous edge he had.  Probably because it could be so easy for him to be arrogant about this because we were fated. Because I couldn't help but smile at every little thing he did. Because if we were being serious here in shades of black to white and pink to blue, he was the one with the power.

But him being nervous meant that he didn't see it that way.

We stepped out into the open air and for a split second, I felt a pang of fear. But people weren't really look at us like I thought they would, and when they did... I didn't expect the air of indifference they looked at us with. Kira was right, no one really cared around here. People probably didn't even think we were on a date. But we were.

I could tell, not because he paid for everything despite my frequent protests or led me places by the small of my back. But because before we bought our tickets, he was talking to me like I was the most important person in the room about our options. It was because when he sat down next to me, even though the movie was kinda interesting, I always saw him looking at me from the corner of my eye. It was because, even separated by a box of popcorn and two Cokes,  I could tell he wanted to hold my hand. And I wanted him to.

Near the end of the movie, we saw a preview for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and I wanted to crack up at the irony of it all.  Everyone was gone or either packing up and getting ready to go. I wasn't in any rush so I looked over at him and leaned as if to speak in his ear. In a low voice, I murmured "Can I ask you a question?"

He nodded and looked unable to speak for a second. I offered him a wavering smile.

"Would you hold my hand if I looked like Audrey Hepburn?"

Derek looked at me for a second, blinked, and his smooth slowly spread into a grin. In no time, his hand slid across the seats and grasped mine.

 "Would you hold mine if I looked like Sidney Poitier?"

I nodded slowly and mock seriously and then I unexpectedly started to laugh. Not like a fake laugh, but the kind of laugh that racks your chest. A real one. He looked at me, shocked, but then we dissolved into laughter together within less than a minute. And along with us, all of our doubt also dissolved, as we sat there, like two teenagers giggling over this stupid joke.

And after that, the tension between us was pretty much gone.

He held my hand out of the theatre the whole time. Derek, who was reasonably taller than me, led me through the crowd. I peered down at our intertwined hands and sometimes I dared to look up, just to see if people were noticing. He released me once we reached the exit.

"Can we take a walk?" I blurted. "Just around the block a bit."

"Yeah, sure," he tripped over his words but nodded.  I couldn't help myself and reached out to hold his hand again. Some people, you hold their hand and they keep still and lifeless. Derek was always doing something. He wove his fingers in between mine, used his thumb to rub the outside of my palm. He would  trace the lines of my palms and then my soulmark, his fingers ghosting over his own name in a way  that made me feel an extreme sense of affection towards him.

"I can't believe I'm your soulmate." he whispered as we walked lazily through Cedar Street, more to himself than to me, in a voice that  was dripping with unapologetic awe. There was no malice in his words. Nothing to be afraid of.

"Me either." I replied. I looked down at his arm, scanning over my name. We'd done our lap and reached the car. Derek opened the car door and I opened it for myself before he could open it for me. I chewed on my lip. The radio played in the background while all of my thoughts these past few days came to the forefront.

"I want you to know that I'm sorry that I brushed you off so much. And avoided you and didn't want to talk in the beginning. But it's just so hard to think about us being soulmates you know, when we can't even move in together, get married, or...have kids. And that's all the stuff you dream about when you think about your clock. And it's just...weird that...you know."

"I know."

"I was scared."                                            

"So was I."

"I still am."

"So am I."

"Yeah, but that's the thing, _you_ have nothing to be afraid of here, you know? You, technically, have all the power."

Derek stopped the yellow car in front of my dorm and looked at me, eyebrows raised, borderline incredulous.

"I was terrified, Braeden. Terrified because I thought I'd never even know your  name Terrified you weren't going to ever talk to me. Terrified that I was going to have to spend the rest of my life looking at you from afar, knowing that the world we live in won't _let_ you like me. Terrified that day you had a panic attack just because you were near me. Terrifed out of my mind, every day you walked past me with your friends, that one day you'd be with some guy and... "  I looked at him, tried to get a good read on him or maybe trying to avoid his sincerity.

"I was scared that _you_ , of all people, weren't going to well, you know...like me, I guess."

"What are you scared of now?" I asked him, trying to set an even tone for my voice, trying not to think of him stretched out on Deaton's cold metal table or about literally all signs pointing towards a dead Derek.  

"I know you want me to say dying."

Damn his werewolf telepathy (or whatever it's called).

"But honestly, right now, it's safe to say I'm scared of how badly my wolf wants you. Even when it's weakened, it can be pretty bad." Derek muttered. 

Deaton's words about the first few years being difficult for supernatural soulmates with their protectiveness and insatiable libidos came rushing back at me.

"How bad is it?"

"Don't freak out but I need to kiss you bad, for right now. But it only gets worse."

My heart picked up speed. "You do?"

He nodded. "Very much."

My own eyes started to drift and my own reservations slipped and my own hand slide back towards his. Eyes wide and extremely aware, he remained unsure of what exactly that meant. My breath almost hitched. I became very conscious of Derek's movement and where he was in that very instant.

"Go ahead."

"What?"

The air changed as I propelled forward to meet his lips for the very first time. It was an overwhelming thing actually. I could feel everything at once. His lips tasted like Coke and the pressure between our lips was feather-light. His hands reached upwards to cradle my face and stroke my cheek.  His overwhelming display of tenderness was impressive, but I could tell it was a struggle for him to keep control.

I could not describe the way that this kiss felt...there was no regret or shame or guilt or fear or lingering or promise of death if we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was just a serene feeling. It felt like a gift.

"Can we do that again?" he whispered against my lips. "One last time, please."

I nodded. I couldn't have said no. I refused to open my eyes, unable to believe that all this was real. The first year had to be difficult for all soulmates, not just werewolves. I didn't know how much I wanted this until it happened, and just like with holding his hand I couldn't get enough.   

This time was different. He took his sweet time. Our lips did not meet again immediately. He intertwined his right fingers with mine and laced them together.  He looked at me, deep in the eye, one hand discarding his coat and then my leather jacket. His other hand lay firmly on my waist rubbing my hips and pushing me closer, slowly. The hand that pushed off my jacket tossed it in the back seat, making time to trace the scars on my skin softly. I sighed. 

And suddenly, life exploded.

Both his hands ended up around my waist, exploring every expanse of skin they could get. But I wasn't complaining because God, did it feel good. My hands crawled into his hair and held on firmly, to his approval. He kissed me hard and rough, sometimes the pressure felt heavy but I wanted it all. He kissed me desperately, kissed me like he was starving and I was a 5-course meal.

I remember teeth. I remember nails. I remember his hands grazing my back up and down. My lips and his parting, making way for each other. Whispering his name as his lips made its way to peppering my neck with kisses, how much I wanted him too.His hands snaking up my shirt, hovering over my bra.

I remember that he said my name only once, and when he did I felt like I would let him do anything to me and like I wanted to do everything to him all at the same time. 

And then, it hit me all too soon that this was a dying man. I felt like he could lift me with just his little finger, but no, he was actually just walking corpse with a target on his back. And he was a client. This was mixing business with way too much pleasure, no, this was mixing business and pleasure and almost-certain death. I had to break away, not because of anything other than professionalism.

When I did, he looked at me and smiled for a minute, pushing my hair out of my face and behind my ear.

"What are you afraid of now?" he asked me. He was panting with cheeks flushed, lips swollen, and eyes bright and happily looking into mine.

Well, to be honest, I'd never kissed anyone like that before, never with that much roughness. Not even during sex. If he really wanted to know, I was afraid of how much I liked it.

"Ok. Now I have to go." I murmured, out of breath as well. He nodded. I rushed as quickly as I could out of the car. I didn't look back. I heard the yellow car speed off and sighed, banging my head against my dorm door a couple times.

I didn't look back all the way to the 7th floor, climbing the stairs, keys between my fingers and still trembling from that kiss. I did not notice, on the 4th floor, how hazy the air was or the body lying outside its room door (this floor was filled with all the stoner kids anyway). I did not notice until my legs gave out and I fell to the ground, felling myself cough and sputter and choke on something that tasted bitter.

I did notice the shadow at the end of the hall. I grasped for my holster, the one imbedded in my leather jacket, but quickly realized that I left that jacket in the backseat of Derek's car. I had no gun. I had no way out.

Two shots rang out.

I didn't look back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I tried not to move too much and think about who shot me. I laid there, writhing in pain. I was surrounded by other bodies, some twitching and some perfectly still. I felt utterly and totally weak, defenseless even. The shot was still ringing in my head. And fuck, I was used to the sound of a bullet. I was used to the bang, the propelling backwards, the shells littering the floor. I've shot people, more people than I could ever begin to count, and I've been shot at myself.
> 
> I've never been shot though."
> 
> Happy holidays, here's a lil gift I guess. Short Derek's POV, then Braeden's POV. (A dream and then reality)! Please review y'all, just for some motivation.

I drove back Peter's car, distracted, which was the scary part. I tried not to swerve, hit a tree or something. All I could think about was kissing Braeden. It was going to be difficult to control my wolf during the first years of adjusting to having a soulmate, I knew that already. But I felt absolutely drunk off of kissing her.  

I came to a stop at a red light.

God, I couldn't get the feeling of touching her out of my head, the sound of her whispering my name, the feeling of her hands in my hair. I was worried though, that I'd been a little bit too rough with her for a first kiss, although I tried to go slowly. It wasn't something I could control. It was just something that happened, obviously. Every second I spent drawing haphazard circles on her sides with my thumb meant nothing the moment her lips parted. From that moment, there was nothing but raw and unfiltered passion. I remembered how smooth her skin was.

Then I remembered her jacket. Shit. She'd left so fast or maybe I left s o fast that I completely forgot her leather jacket in the backseat of my car. I could give it to her tomorrow, but where was the fun in that? Before I knew it, I had checked my surroundings and made a hasty and very illegal U-turn.

* * *

 

It was my first Christmas coming back home with the soulmate. My family had demanded to meet him, which I'd been dreading since my clock ran out. I'd come straight home from my last class to avoid traffic and the first thing my mother made me do was change from my  blue jeans to a skirt, and then complained that it was too short.

I told my mother that he was coming two hours later than he said he would, because I knew he'd be late.  When he called and I told him that he was probably going to be early, he chuckled and called me clever. And my heart fluttered a little bit, God I couldn't help it.

There was a jolt in the kitchen and a chorus of  laughter swept over me—the old woman laughs that end in coughs, the type of laughs that are hidden because that’s what they’re used to, wheezing laughs, breathy laughs, clapping laughs, stomping laughs, crying laughs, out of breath laughs, giggling laughs, I was drinking something laughs, whiny types of laughs, pregnant woman laughs, new mothers type of laughs, the unwilling laughs, the unrelenting laughs, and of course, the classic holding onto your sister while she tries not to get her hair in Grandma's pasta because she’s bent over laughing just as hard as you laugh— and I marveled at how warm it is to be a black woman.

I marveled at my mom and the grace and poise she held. How much confidence it took to be her on a daily basis.

But I didn’t go in the kitchen to help because I was too nervous. So I sat on the couch, holding my new baby cousin as he snored softly. His fingers clasped one of mine. I looked down at his tiny wrist. Clear. His soulmate hadn't even been born yet. Once she (or maybe he) did, everyday between the clock-reveal shower until the day they met would be one day closer. At this point in his life, everything was simple. But soon enough, everyone would want to see his tiny little wrist and he wouldn't know a thing going on. I kissed his head and wondered if he could feel my heartbeat the same way I could feel his.

It was funny, I always thought your heart was supposed to beat out of your chest during moments like this. But as I listened to it, it was like a man beating a gong inside of my ribs and every second I thought about my own soulmate and what my father would say was a vibration. It wasn’t the cold making me shiver.

I closed my eyes, I didn’t want to see I only wanted to…listen. Children in the snow, shrieked as Mother Nature played along with them, stalling the fall of the sun. I heard each snowball like a gunshot and I hoped I was the next one in line to be caught in the crossfire between human and nature. I wanted the universe to do something about the inevitable tragedy about to befall my sleepy little hometown, to change the name on my wrist at the last second or to change him into someone different. And I knew that sounded horrible and I was ashamed, but I was scared and only wanted it for as long as my parents were around. When we're alone or with people who understand, it's different. I'm different. Around my parents, it's a different playing field entirely.

I heard the women in the kitchen singing. I fell into the voice of my mother and my auntie and my mom's best friend and my grandmother and the women who could have been my mother and their lives and their stories. Their song begged to be heard. Their song knew where it was going, their hearts knew where they wanted to be and they were loud and proud.

Sometimes I wonder why…if I really loved Derek, if the name on my wrist was unmistakable: why I was so ashamed to say it, to sing it, to praise it, to pray for him, to make it real with words—real, honest to God, truthful words, the only sounds that every meant anything real. I wanted to say it so much that it lost its meaning, just so I could find it again.

Girls in my situation and their men were all around me. My senior class president cousin and her college freshman boyfriend were all pacing feet and frantic whispers about collared shirts and clasped hands and the occasional shadowy and yet tangible “I love you”. They both said it factually and without fear—like a reminder or a stepping stool for confidence. It was a promise.

A promise not to run away if he won’t run away. Don't run from my uncle's disapproving grunts. Don't run from the scrutinizing gaze of my father. Don't run from things that roughly translate to you not being enough to love and be loved by me in every language you could ever study.

But only if I won't run away from snickering cousins. Don't run from my mother's veiled and vague judgments that are pronounced enough to still make me cry. Don't run from the tone that my father uses that still makes me fold into herself. Don't play into the universal offense of all parents and old folk who felt as if they were losing their children. Promise to prove that fate was right.

And there were 5 or more promises just like that swarming around me and the baby.

And when these couples touched, God, you could just tell. You didn't need to pay attention to whether or not they had names on their wrist, even though it was the number one sign that the clock had struck zero and that there was no more possible guesswork. You just looked at them to know love was here and love was present and they were destined to be together.

None of us have ever seen the soulmark appear on anything other than dark skin.  
  
And it scared me to be so ashamed in this moment, that I couldn’t talk about him with anyone here. But my silence hasn’t been so quiet recently. It’s been waking up in white arms and singing in the shower and brewing two cups of coffee with 3 packets of sugar. It's been smiling and sighing and kissing pink frosted lips goodbye. It's been coming home to make dinner with and watch the Ed Sullivan Show with and sleep next to and with a man who treats me less like property than my own father does. And my silence just wouldn’t shut up about my miracle.

The name on my wrist betrayed my body, because my body doesn’t want to be here. It doesn’t want to admit that I fucked up and did the one thing I knew I wasn’t supposed to do. It doesn’t want to hear my mother cry, it doesn’t want to hear my father yell. It doesn't want to expelled from the family and everything we stand for. It doesn't want to visit it's brother's grave alone next week. It doesn't want to make Derek upset. Oh, everything in my body was physically against hearing him be upset but all my heart wanted to do was listen.

And when he pulled up, I knew. The children went silent and the white snow fell to the ground, like harmless bullets. They’d never heard a white man talk to them without segregation on his tongue, separate but equal tattooed on both of his lips, or “hello” suddenly meaning “back of the bus”. And as he turned the doorknob, I knew in my heart that I just wasn’t ready.

I opened the door for him, unsure of what to say. He smiled at me and I smiled up at him as he bent down to kiss me. My mother scurried from the kitchen, to get the first look. And that's when I realized that this couldn't be real, and this was a nightmare and I was dreaming. She dropped the plate in her hands, and it shattered to the ground. She looked between us both, fury staining every single one of her features.

The fire alarm woke me up before my mom could scream.

I woke up from my fever dream, on the fourth floor, fire alarm going crazy, and surrounded by bodies. My skin felt like I was on fire. I had a massive pounding headache. Tears pricked my eyes, blood trickled a little from my hand. I couldn't believe I'd had such a nightmare, the one where my mom was alive and I was bringing Derek over and she rejected him. I felt like I did at Vietnam. No actually, worse than I did back at Vietnam.

Actually, it reminded me more like the months before. My dad didn't want me to go. He was firmly, _firmly_ against it. Not  because he was worried I couldn't handle myself like everyone else, with less than 3 months of nursing school under my belt. No, he wasn't worried about that. He found the idea of the hunter he had been raising nursing people back to health degrading. He said he rather I go as a soldier, like my brother. And whenever he brought it up, those tense months before and after graduation, I would just shrug and say I'd have preferred that too.

I couldn't possibly tell him the real reason I was going.

I couldn't tell him that Dr. Alan Deaton didn't really need me as a nurse with barely any training, no he needed me to be a specialized spy. I couldn't tell him that I wouldn't actually be in a helicopter, amputating someone's leg at the knee, instead I'd just be tracking down a mutant that Dr. Alan Deaton could barely describe in his letters. I couldn't tell him that he'd found out about them because her mother died at the hands of the people she couldn't have trusted more.

"My emissary grandmother was killed by her Alpha, my emissary great-grandmother was killed by her Alpha and even my emissary great aunt was killed by his Alpha,  and so on and so forth. But you know something, not my brother he got killed in the war. My family was cursed with primarily female emissary tragedy stories. So now my dad wants us to be hunters. I'm not as good at that as he thinks." I remembered telling Deaton, when asking what I knew about the supernatural.

But to say my mom was just an emissary would be an understatement. Her mom was much more than that to a lot of people, specifically her wolf: childhood best friend,  Magnolia Stanes, but everyone called her Maggie. I called her Auntie Mags and so did my brothers, Michael and Ernest. No one could have imagined that Auntie Mags would have been the one to kill my mother. But we really should have known or should have been more careful at least, you know?

Deaton needed me to track down Deucalion. The rest of the ragtag squad he assembled didn't know how to track. The most competent people there were me, Deaton's young assistant Scott, and this French girl, Allison, barely looked over the age of 17 and spoke very little, despite being fluent in English. I found out six months after we caught Deucalion and his pack that Allison died, protecting her friends.

I tried not to move too much and think about who shot me. I laid there, writhing in pain. I was surrounded by other bodies, some twitching and some perfectly still. I felt utterly and totally weak, defenseless even. The shot was still ringing in my head. And fuck, I was used to the sound of a bullet. I was used to the bang, the propelling backwards, the shells littering the floor. I've shot people, more people than I could ever begin to count, and I've been shot at myself.

I've never been shot though.

Sirens blared outside, and I realized they were coming for me. Well, us. All of us here, lying on the floor. No one from the other floors would notice, least of all Lyd, Marin, and Kira. Like I said, the 4th floor was the stoner hallway. This happened at least once a month.

A door downstairs opened but it didn't sound like firemen. A man's steps shuffled up the stairs.

"Malia, if the sheriff finds out you're here..."

"Your father loves me."

"I mean the actual sheriff, my sheriff, my boss, you know? Sheriff Walters, not the one back in Beacon Hills."

"Who? Never heard of him."

"The man who pays our bills. Babe, if we lose our house, all of us gonna have to live in the woods somewhere."

"Not as bad as you think. The baby's already being raised by a technical wolf."

"Malia. Let's just go home. We can get some Mickey D's if you want."

"McDonald's is closed by now, and besides, I had a feeling about this place in the car and the fire alarms going off proves me right."

"How am I gonna explain that to him? Why I got here before the fire department? Look, babe. No one really knows us in town yet, we have to lay low and not have weird heightened senses for things gone supernaturally amiss."

"You're a cop, you _should_ be-" She cut herself off and I heard a whispered curse and a call for back-up immediately.

They'd reach the fourth floor. I could only imagine what this looked like. Dead bodies everywhere. Smoke rising off their bodies, their faces utterly lifeless.

The door swung open below them. My arm started to tingle. My breath hitched.

"Wait, wait, honey, no look! I think some of them are alive." the girl whispered.

"Well, I think I'm gonna throw  up."

"I'm not kidding, Stiles, I think someone's alive!"

He was getting close and closer, climbing up the stairs. My soulmark was going insane. His had to be too. He had to know something was wrong. He had to know that he should get away.

"What's going on here?" Derek's voice snaked across the floor.  "What happened?"

"Early guess: gas leak, mass suicide. Either way it's a tragedy." the cops voice wobbled.

"Are you going to throw up?" Derek backed up a little bit.

I tried to cough, show some sign of life, but I couldn't move a muscle. Tears were falling openly. I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I was going to get buried alive.

"Wait, sir." the girl whispered. "Look at the colored guy right there. Does he look like his chest is rising and falling, or like he's breathing?"

"Maybe? I just want to get to my...uh...soulmate's room, drop this off. But if the building's being evacuated or something, I can just go..."

"And that colored girl a few down from him, look...the blood is still flowing and her chest is rising and falling...and come on, look tears are still falling. She's definitely alive, baby."

"I'm going to find a garbage can."

I think for the rest of my life I'll still be able sense the moment Derek realized it was me. It happened so clearly that I could feel the ball of fear in his chest and the way his heart dropped.

The girl, Malia, was screaming the cop's name and the firetruck sirens and police cars were starting to pull up but I could only hear the agonized way Derek _roared_ my name and stepped over bodies to get to me. I could feel him, his hands stroking my face and feeling my pulse, frantically trying to find some life. And I was trying to find some too, I really was. I tried to open my eyes and all, but I couldn't do it. My nerves were shot.

The pain on my side was turning to numbness, beginning to spread across my whole entire body. There's only one gun, well, one bullet I knew capable of this kind of torture.

I knew exactly who shot me.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '"Why are you still here?" She said it and all I could see was Braeden lying around those dead bodies. All I could feel was the pit in my throat drop to my stomach the moment I saw her. I was swept with the urge to kiss her again. She looked at me, incredulous, really wondering why I was still here with her. As if I could leave her. As if I could ever leave her ever again, after seeing what could happen to her. It reminded me that she was so human and she was so mortal, and me too. I could be mortal too. If she'd been shot some place worse, I wouldn't even be talking to her. I was so grateful, immensely grateful that this Argent girl had just been trying to send a message and not trying to kill Braeden."
> 
> Derek POV. Finally off Christmas-break hiatus! Keep reviewing y'all, I appreciate your words more than anything.

It's just for one night. I said in my head as I sat next to Braeden's bed. The people outside were in a flurry, trying to take care of so many people at once. The moment we entered the hospital, I had made sure Braeden got immediate assistance and somehow, this kind nurse took her off my hands for me. Said to not even worry. She smiled kindly at me as they placed Braeden in the stretcher and said that'd she'd be right back to see if she wakes up and to ask her a few questions.

"Can I stay with her?" the words tumbled out of my mouth quickly. I was surprised at how little my voice sounded, almost like a child.

"Well...are you family?" she said, blinking in confusion.

"Yeah. Soulmate." I breathed.

And here I was, watching her, all vulnerable and small. Iwas desperate for any sort of movement she provided. Any sort of gesture, any twitch of the eye, curling of the fingers. It was such a relief. After a half hour or so past 3 AM, I stood in the doorway for a second

Outside the room, the noise was beginning to die down. The cop I'd  found at the scene of the crime was breathing into a paper bag while his pregnant wife tried to console him. I noticed the way they acted around each other. It was with the practiced ease of long term soulmates. It was in the way she caressed the back of his neck, the way he held onto her hand desperately, and the way she smiled reassuringly at him. Their soulmarks were steady and calm.

The wife made eye contact with me for a second. She smiled sheepishly, not in a way that said that she was embarrassed that her husband was having a panic attack but in a way that  had a noncommittal air about it. Her eyes flashed blue for a millisecond and I'm pretty sure mine were either red or blue, I couldn't tell. She didn't seem fazed and regained focus on her husband.

Before I could question what just happened, the nurse came back into my line of vision and was making a beeline for Braeden's room. She had a big needle in her hands.

As she brushed past me, she jammed the needle into Braeden's IV.

"What are you doing? What's that for?" I quickly turned away from the other werewolf-esque creature and turned to the nurse. She didn't look up at me.

"It's a stimulant. They examined the bullet they pulled out of her arm and now my questions can't wait until she's awake on her own." the nurse sighed. She pulled a silver bullet from her scrubs. I backed up a little, instinctively. "She's the only one who got hit with this. Everyone else was gassed up. This is a signature bullet. It's a dead giveaway."

Braeden began to stir and toss, gradually, and then all of a sudden her eyes flew open and her mouth opened to beg and gasp for air. I folded my arms and looked at her nervously, trying to resist the urge to touch her.

"Braeden, try sitting up." the nurse said. "I have a few questions to ask you."

She looked up at me. I'd missed those eyes, I realized. She looked between me and the nurse and thinking of the silver bullet, I nodded my head at her and tried to make her feel safe.

"Braeden. I'm Melissa McCall, your nurse. I just have a few quick simple questions. Do you know anything about Scott McCall or Allison Argent?" the nurse whispered, pulling the bullet out of her pocket. Braeden's eyes widened and she cursed under her breath.

"Scott?" I turned to the nurse.

"My son, you know him?"

"Not that well. My uncle's the one who bit him, still calls him when he's in trouble sometimes."

"Small world." Nurse McCall didn't even blink. "Anyway, Braeden, what do you know about the Argent girl."

"I knew Allison shot me. I knew she did. She put some herb on it that deactivates your central nervous system for hours. She showed me it years ago, it's elementary."

Nurse McCall gave her a look. Braeden shrugged.

"We're both kind of in the same line of business. Anyway, I thought she was dead...that's what Scott told me or that's what the military told Scott."

"Okay." Nurse McCall leaned back up, nodding to herself. "You two definitely know Scott and I know he's definitely in town."

"What makes you think that?" Braeden said.

"His pack, including his stepbrother and ex-girlfriend are here. I didn't know he was coming. He told me his clock had changed a little while ago and he had to take care of a few things, but I had no idea what that meant." She looked at the silver bullet. "I guess I do now."

"Scott would never try to kill anyone. He's a true Alpha"  I interjected. Scott was too sweet a kid. I'd met him only a couple of times. He was just starting Beacon Hills High School the year I was just starting college. Peter was so pissed that he'd bit such a young kid like Scott on a full moon one night. We didn't talk much before I left, me and Scott, but you didn't need to talk to Scott much to know that he's a good kid with a good head on his shoulders. He was always talking about his friends and his stepbrother, Stiles and how to protect them whenever danger came to a head. I wasn't even shocked to discover that he was a true Alpha.

"I know." Melissa sighed. "This is a message. She knew it would get to me. She knew I was gonna be the only nurse on duty on this floor. It means they've been watching me. Again. And also, someone's trying to kill one or both of them. Again"

Braeden's eyes widened. A doctor yelled her name and Melissa McCall excused herself, not a second later. It was silent. I moved back to my seat next to her. She looked around for a second and turned to me, about 10 minutes later and a bit fidgety.

"I didn't know you knew Scott."

"He's Peter's pride and joy." I smirked.

"What time is it?" she croaked.

"Like 3 in the morning or something." I answered, shrugging.

"Why are you still here?" She said it and all I could see was Braeden lying around those dead bodies. All I could feel was the pit in my throat drop to my stomach the moment I saw her. I was swept with the urge to kiss her again. She looked at me, incredulous, really wondering why I was still here with her. As if I could leave her. As if I could ever leave her ever again, after seeing what could happen to her. It reminded me that she was so human and she was so mortal, and me too. I could be mortal too. If she'd been shot some place worse, I wouldn't even be talking to her. I was so grateful, immensely grateful that this Argent girl had just been trying to send a message and not trying to kill Braeden.

"I'm protecting my investment." I whispered. Automatically, I reached over to her and kissed her on the forehead, hands cradling her face. Her eyes flew closed as I watched her breathe.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "for scaring you like that."

"Don't be." Pressing my forehead against hers, I realized that I couldn't let this go because it was everything I'd wanted. It was the soft and wavering texture of the universe that sealed our fate and I trusted it completely. I wanted to do everything with her. I kissed her lips somewhat delicately, and my issue wasn't hiding it from the people in the hallway, I could care less about the half-awake CU campus security seeing me kiss this perfect woman, but trying to control myself. Her hands took mine,

"Brae?" I heard in the doorway. It was Marin's voice. I pulled away from Braeden quickly before she could push me off. Marin was soaking wet and shivering, stepping closer towards Braeden. All the while, she and Marin exchanged a meaningful display of eye contact. Marin's were red-rimmed, as if she were crying just moments before. Braeden nodded, suggesting that she was okay with her eyes.

"Don't worry. I'll explain later, okay?" Braeden said gently. "Are Kira and Lydia here with you?"

"Yes, but the moment we stepped in the hospital, Kira's clock when down from a 22 hours to  2 minutes and 37 seconds and now she refuses to move. Lyds is trying to push her on the elevator. She was so scared when they told us something happened and we found out you were shot. She thought her clock...we all did...well, except Lydia."

"Wait..." Braeden cut her off, flipping the covers. She steadied herself and walked towards the doorway, all on her own. Marin and I wanted to reach out and help her keep her balance, definitely, but we had the feeling she wouldn't let us yet. She stepped into the hallway and turned her head to the left and at the end of the hall, Nurse McCall opened the emergency exit door and began to sternly lecture someone with a mop of black hair who was shaking off the rain.

The elevator dinged. Out stepped Lydia and Kira.

"You're okay!" Lydia whispered. "I was so worried, which I know sounds stupid but..."

"Shh," Braeden said. Pointing down the hallway.

Scott McCall, whose head had turned at the elevator ding was now making his way slowly towards us stepping over sleepy, passed out campus security everywhere (the cop and his pregnant werewolf wife were nowhere to be found though). We must have looked like the most ragtag group. A patient, out of bed, and holding onto a doorframe for life. I reached out to put my arm around her waist, holding her up. Me, his old childhood resident werewolf half-Alpha. 2 girls in their pajamas sticking to them. His mom. And his soulmate.

Kira stood still as her clock reached 0. Tears ran down her face. Her eyes never left Scott's. Melissa's mouth was agape, almost comically so. 

"Kira." he said, once he was close enough for her to hear him. I looked at his wrist. Sure enough. Kira's name was beginning to stitch itself on. That can't be right. There could be no way Scott could know her name beforehand. Me and Braeden looked up at each other. I realized that they must have went to high school together a moment after she did. And judging by the looks on their faces, they weren't just classmates.

"You remembered my name." Kira whispered once they were face to face, choking on her tears. She reached out to touch his face. Scott grabbed her hand and enveloped her in a great embrace, her head pressed against his neck as her shoulders moved up and down to indicate that she was sobbing. He held onto her tightly, eyes shut tightly.

"They've met before." Lydia whispered, rolling her eyes at fate. "Great. What the hell does that mean?"


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison turned towards the door. "Well...if you don't mind, I'm gonna find Scott. Take him and Kira to the Stilinskis. We'll come by to debrief you later. I know he's already hired you."
> 
> I smiled, nodding towards the sleeping behemoth. "That he did."
> 
> Allison winked."Smart move."
> 
> -A little bit smuttier than usual. I don't know why though, consider it my gift to Derek. Reviewers: thank you for existing and making my life.

The final (wrong) projection was a gas leak, which was pretty common in our dorms. Marin knew exactly what it was though and detected it the moment the dorm mom screamed at our floor to evacuate. She didn't smell anything gas and she noticed that the victims being sent into ambulances all had welts and rashes on their arms. It led her to believe that there'd been an outbreak and one conversation with Deaton proved her to be right.

"But it's a supernatural affliction." Marin explained, watching the 5 AM sun rise through the blinds of my hospital window. "The whole fourth floor weren't just stoners, they were also fucking werewolves."

"Scott's perfectly fine though." I sighed, frustrated.

"Thank God. According to Kira, he wasn't there." Lydia said. "It was just Allison there last night. We got a statement from her, but all Scott said was that she was following a suspicion. He wouldn't give us anymore detail beyond that."

"He was busy looking into Kira's eyes. I swear he wanted to pin her against the wall right in front of his mother." Marin snorted.

"Did you ask him why the hell she shot me?"

 "She wanted to make an entrance."

"She could have just fucking said hello."

Lydia laughed as Derek let out a large snore. She looked over at Derek, who was now knocked out in the chair beside my bed. He'd promised that he would stay the whole night with me. He refused to break that promise. I rolled my eyes good-naturedly as he roared in his sleep.

"Why's he still here again?" Marin grumped. I smiled a little.

"He said he's protecting his investment." Lydia said sarcastically. "So far, so good."

"My hero." I deadpanned as another snore ripped through the room.

Marin shook her head. "Good luck with all that, girl."

"It's a werewolf thing." I heard from the doorway. Looking up, I saw Allison, in all of her glory. Marin and Lydia immediately jumped into their defensive positions beside me. I sighed, knowing I wasn't in danger, trying to sit up without blowing out a lung.

"You alright?" Allison aked me, quietly.

"I'm fine." I grinned. "You know I hate hospitals."

"Yeah, I know," Allison gave me a tiny smile back. "I went to Deaton first, actually."

"He must've had a heart attack. We all thought you were dead."

"I know. I'm sorry about that and all. Scott and I spent the last few years down in Mexico. Uncle Sam gave us an offer we couldn't refuse." Allison shrugged. "It was...almost personal, so I didn't want it to really get out and neither did the Army."

"Kate." I said. Allison winced, but she shot me so I figured I had some leeway and deserved the truth. "Derek told me all about her. Ex-girlfriend. Hale fire. I bet you already knew."

"I found out." Allison nodded. "We were tracking Kate for the better part of our time. Once she found out or something, she started to travel back here. Looking for something, someone. The whole Project Deucalion thing just made her stronger, which was weird because she couldn't even control her own strength sometimes. We came up here, just to see where she's coming from. We knew Nurse McCall would be here in the summer to be closer to the Stilinskis."

"Didn't go how you planned, huh?"

"Oh yeah, sorry for shooting you and all. I panicked, went with instinct." Allison sighed.

"Shit, I have a rally today." Marin randomly mumbled. I'd almost forgotten how close it was to the holiday season, which prime Anti-Soulmate protest season. There'd been a 1952 study that suggested that there is a higher concentration of matched soulmates in the summer and during the holiday rush season. All the chilly November air didn't just remind me that Thanksgiving and finals were coming up, but that government love was oppressive and the war in Vietnam was pointless. 2 things that seemed very true at this point in time.

"When is it?" I mumbled. I attended Marin's rallies very infrequently. Sometimes I have to drive her up to New York or down to DC or wherever in the world she'd be speaking. Marin was a devout believer in the ASC and I supported that...it just wasn't for me, like she said. And she understood, because the ASC wasn't about eradicating soulmates completely. Just the societal expectation that we had no choice in who we love and the government's involvement in all issues regarding soulmates when there's no need to be.

"It's at 4. New York. Train leaves at 2."

"I check out at 8."

"Don't come. Rest." Marin commanded.

Lydia sighed. "Well, in that case, we should go back to the dorm and see if it's open yet."

"If not we can go to Deaton's and crash for a couple of hours there and he'll let you study because I know you have bio finals soon, Lyds."

"As long as we can stop by the post office on the way," Lydia yawned a little bit. "Jordan said he would write me back the second he got a chance and I just wanna see if he found one."

"I'll drive the car around." Marin nodded and crawled off my bed. I laughed, wishing her good luck and saying goodbye.

And with that, she was gone. I stared at the door as she left.

I don't know what it was but I was shocked. I guess I was just surprised that Alison was alive and pulsing right in front of me, when for years I thought that she was dead. It reminded me of working with her under Deaton all those years ago. 2 girls, supposed army nurses, against the world. Allison used to be one of our sector's best secret soldiers. She had been part of a legacy hunter family, groomed to be its matriarch. Scott and her got off to a prickly start, due to his werewolf attributes. But it quickly evolved, often into late nights in the barracks and Scott drunkenly rambling to me and anyone else who would listen about how much he loved Allison and how much he didn't care who his soulmate was if it wasn't Allison. She felt the same way, on a subdued level. But she entered with less than a month left and when her clock hit zero, we all knew what was to come.

His name was Cameron.

During some of the busy Army emergency days, me and Allison worked in the infermiary all day. The day her clock was supposed to hit zero, she acted like she didn't care and was very nonchalant about it. I didn't need werewolf senses to know her heart was beating out of her chest. Around midnight we were trying to sleep standing up, when  2 privates burst into the infermiary with a bleeding soldier wrapped around their shoulders. Me and Allison were nodding off but quickly jumped to our feet as they fell to their knees under his weight. 

"Ma'am, I can't breathe." One of the soldiers was wheezing and coughing hysterically, obviously having a panic attack. The other one was painfully quiet, the type of silence that left a bad taste in your mouth. I snuck a look at Allison's clock, as she felt the pulse of the soldier on the ground. 30 seconds left. I grabbed the emergency aid kit and knelt to the floor beside the wheezing one to calm him down.

"We're losing him." I noted to her quietly. "His clock is disappearing. It's hitting zero."

"What happened, soldier?" she said, officially locking eyes with the soldier on the ground. Blood spilled from his back but his eyes were painfully alert. This was not looking good. He was losing blood too quickly. All of a sudden, bingo. There it was. The red line. Allison's soulmate. I bit my lip with dread.     

Allison's soulmate looked up at her and gave her a weak smile, but it was covered in blood.  

"Gee. Look at that." Cameron managed to struggle out. Allison shook her head, telling him not to speak. She gathered his head and placed it on her lap.

"I must look like a mess." Cameron whispered. Allison laughed tearfully, furiously blushing and now irrevocably sad, unable to look away from the patient. 

"That laugh." Cameron's voice was shaking and getting harder to hear. "Gee. That's really something. Really, really, something."

"Soldier," I said for her, looking at the silent boy as the one having a panic attack breathed into a bag. He was crying now, tears unwillingly edging out of the corner of his eyes. Blood stained hands shook against his leg. "What happened?"

"That's my brother." That was all Private Lahey could say.  I knew there was nothing we could do with all this blood, but maybe our boss...

"Miss Coretta!" I shouted, standing up to retrieve the sleeping woman from the other room. Miss Coretta sprinted across and did her damn best, but it was hours too late. Seargent Cameron Lahey died in the arms of his brother and his would-be soulmate. Allison looked up at me, tears in her eyes. For days, we waited for her red line to disappear. But it didn't.

We didn't fully understand what happened until later. Deaton explained that Cameron was Allison's original soulmate, but Isaac- who originally had 2 years left- took over Cameron's role upon his death. That type of thing seemed to occur only in supernaturals, so we had to be careful if Cameron and Isaac were supernatural.

Isaac and Allison healed each other slowly. Isaac would often stay in the nurses trailer Allison and I shared, transforming in a wolf and sneaking over to be with Allison.

There would be nights where Isaac and her would scream and fight about Isaac refusing to accept a "hand me down" soulmate, Allison refusing to open up about her past, Isaac refusing to talk about how Cameron died in his "military accident", Allison not letting him hold her. There would be nights where they would fight over Isaac wanting to marry her. There would be nights where Allison would scream at him for being reckless and a soldier and at risk of dying. There would be nights where he would do the same. There would be nights where he didn't come to see her at all and she'd sob like he died. Nights where they would fuck. Nights where they would make love until the sun came up.

I was strongly considering moving into the tents.

Scott's heart was broken. But he never let his broken heart make him treat Allison differently. Or Isaac. 

When Allison left the team, Isaac was devastated. When Allison "died", he was kind of placed on unofficial suicide watch. Deaton doesn't know where Isaac is now, somewhere in France maybe.

I looked over at Allison."Where are you guys staying?"

"With the Stilinskis. The youngest one and his wife, werecoyote. He works as campus security now, has an apartment downtown.  The whole family's relocating next year. His dad got transferred from Beacon Hills Police Force to the DCPD in the summer, said they need more experienced sheriffs to deal with the influx of protests in DC this year. You should see the anti-riot gear, its impressive."

"Nice." I nodded.

"Our stay might be more permanent than I thought." Allison sighed. "Scott's got a soulmate here now. And you know Scott, he'll never leave her. Especially since they're both supernatural.

"Everything keeps coming back around to Carter University." I smirked.

"Right and it's just...well, I can't be on my own." Allison whispered, looking down at her shoe.

"You're not. You have us." Derek let out a huge snore. I turned to Lydia.

Lydia looked at me before leaving for Marin.

"I'm glad you're okay, Brae." She smiled once and nodded to Allison.

 I thought for a minute about Lydia, who was fidgeting with her dogtags. Everyday was a constant reminder that her soulmate was off doing something, completely noble and selfless, that thousands of people were against. I could tell that frustrated Lydia: I mean, who could accurately draw the line between dedicated army girlfriend and angsty college student?

Allison turned towards the door. "Well...if you don't mind, I'm gonna find Scott. Take him and Kira to the Stilinskis. We'll come by to debrief you later. I know he's already hired you."

I smiled, nodding towards the sleeping behemoth. "That he did."

Allison winked."Smart move. You look good together." 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Derek was more focused on my bullet wound. Then he traveled to the mark on my arm from a nasty burn years ago. I felt his eyes glance over every single one of my marks as if he was memorizing them and I didn't stop him. His eyes reached my collarbone and took its time traveling just below my chin. I was hoping he didn’t ask me to explain myself, explain the mess my body was in. I looked up at him. His eyes had become fixated with my lips. All I could remember was Deaton's warning."
> 
> Hi. It's been awhile. Here is sex. This is really just a pwp chapter, man.

When I woke up hours later, I was no longer under the influence of sharp sedatives. I found myself in Derek's loft, on his couch, staring at the ceiling as sunlight streamed through the windows. I felt calm. Derek had walked into his living room and found me asleep, and shook me awake.

“Hi.” I muttered, shifting to my side.

“Hey.” Derek whispered. His hand reached out to touch my hand and I didn't flinch. Just turned my head towards him and touched his bearded cheek. 

Derek was more focused on my bullet wound. Then he traveled to the mark on my arm from a nasty burn years ago. I felt his eyes glance over every single one of my marks as if he was memorizing them and I didn't stop him. His eyes reached my collarbone and took its time traveling just below my chin. I was hoping he didn’t ask me to explain myself, explain the mess my body was in. I looked up at him. His eyes had become fixated with my lips. All I could remember was Deaton's warning.

"Derek?" I whispered. 

"I’m sorry." Derek murmured, immediately tearing his eyes away from my lips and looking down at the ground, as if he was a child I just scolded. I blinked for a second, shocked at this show of self-discipline. I didn’t want Derek to feel bad for his natural urges. I wanted to show Derek I understood the wolf in him that he couldn’t tear himself away from.

“Hey, okay, I’m sure you can look at me. Come on.” I grabbed Derek’s hands, taking them in my own and brushing my thumb across their surface. "It's not your fault.”

Derek still refused to look at me, too ashamed to show me his eyes. I grabbed his chin with one hand and yanked his face back to mine, half-expecting his blue eyes, half expecting his brown ones. I was met with an ocean of blue sweeping over me and in that moment I got the sense that Derek was the strongest he had been in a while.

“Derek.” I stated, blown away by how beautiful his eyes were. For a second, I just stared at them and tried not to blink. The strength he had right now was almost an energy that paraded around the room, one that was leaving me plenty hot and plenty bothered. A shiver went up my spine. My grip on Derek’s chin loosened and reached toward his brow, pushing the hair out of his eyes and resting my hand on his cheek. Derek hesitated before grabbing that hand and pressing a kiss to the very tip of my finger, traveling to my wrist…my arm…my shoulder…my neck. I sighed as Derek started giving out small bites. My hands curled in the back of his hair as I started biting back moans.

“Fuck, Braeden, I need you." Derek whispered in a tiny voice. Before I could say anything in response, he gave me a kiss. It was a sweet one, at first. But I knew the second his mouth touched mine, the balance was shifting. His grip got tighter, his hold on me rougher. “I need you so bad.”

"Really? How bad?" I asked against his swollen lips, my hand caressing his face. I could tell Derek was torn on either having his way with me right here on this couch or treating me gently since I had just come from the hospital. I decided to poke the belly of the beast. "How bad do you need me?"

"I need you so bad. I need you right now." he said hastily and honestly. I reveled in the feeling of being needed so desperately. He kissed me again, with all lips parted and teeth crashing like he'd just declared war.

I could tell which side of Derek was winning when his hands started to roam. He seemed completely unsure, delicately brushing the place on my arm where my wound was. I sighed and took matters into my own hands, because I definitely overstayed my welcome at the hospital anyway. I grabbed his wrist and brought his hand to cup one of my breasts. His palm ghosted over my chest, realizing that I didn't mind what was happening, not one bit.  Sure enough, Derek took my initiative as an indication to keep going and I was glad.

Derek's kisses were getting rougher by the second and I liked it way more than I thought I would. I slowly started to disappear in them one by one as they got deeper. His lips moved from my own to my chest, graduating from closed mouth pecks to open nibbling bites every few minutes. He kneaded and pressed with one of his hands, almost desperately. The other hand gripped my hip.

Impatience tugged at the hem of my t-shirt. Eagerness allowed me to lean back and let him strip me. Excitement reached for the back of my bra and after a few seconds of brief challenge (which I smiled at), finally snapped it off.

Derek watched my exposed skin, eyes wide and perfectly aware. I looked down at myself for a second, before looking up at him. I was exposed in front of him for the first time and I felt calm. This felt right. Sharing my body with a man who I knew loved me.

"God," Derek whispered, in a tone of such severe admiration I wanted to puke. 

With my own hand was poised over where his t-shirt was beginning to ride up, I slid into Derek's lap and began to straddle him. Fumbling a little bit, I grabbed the bottom of his shirt and tried to pull it up. Derek leaned back, allowing me to peel off his shirt. I took it all in. Down near the side, less bandages covered up the bullet wound from before.

Derek caught me staring at his bullet wound and placed a hand underneath my chin. He started kissing me all over.

“You’re so beautiful.” He had begun whispering things I'd always wanted to hear pressed into my skin. I wrapped my arms around his neck and threw my head back. “So fucking beautiful.”

"Derek, please," the words escaped, using a voice that didn't even sound like my own. His eyes snapped back to mine. Derek's mouth snuck his way to my chest. I trembled, in his lap, due to the sensations caused by his mouth. I found myself wondering who taught him how to please a woman: was it Kate? Was it after? Was it his wolf? Was it just another werewolf thing, did being great at foreplay come along with the snoring and red eyes and claws and the hair and the teeth?

After a minute, he looked up at me as my hips slowly rocked back and forth over his clothed lap. I never looked away. I couldn't help myself, knowing I was teasing him and playing a dangerous game. I allowed the friction between us to multiply. My hand reached from behind his neck to right above his belt.  Finally, just when I couldn't take it anymore, a growl escaped from Derek.

Derek had strong hands. They situated themselves by my thighs as he lifted me up and stalked towards his bedroom. Tossing me on his bed, he hovered over me. Drunk off of the look in his eyes, I began to become addicted to the strong way he made love. He kissed me over and over until my chin was growing raw with the constant contact of his beard.

I took Derek into my hand for a second, releasing him from his boxers. I started to fumble with the buckle, cupping him through his jeans. Derek cursed as he squeezed my ass. He looked at me with hooded and dark eyes. His chest rose and fell over me and his breath picked up speed as my hands started to maneuver it’s way around. I slowly tried to flip us over, all while still stroking in a steady rhythm. With Derek’s back was pressed against the sheets and my hand wrapped around him, he closed his eyes and started to curse intensely. I watched his face shift before I bent down and began to take Derek into my mouth. I just wanted to make him feel good for at least a second.

His mouth opened and my name fell out so many times, I lost track. His trembling hands grabbed on to the back of my head forcefully and I could tell that he was trying not to shove me downwards. After a second, he cursed, pulled me up, brought my face towards him.

“If…if you keep…I’m gonna…” Derek breathed, visibly overwhelmed. “And I want to return the favor.” I nodded to show I understood that this was a lot for him and that the promise of getting eaten out was always one I liked to hear. Derek’s hands were beginning to quit shaking and he was just about to take control over the situation when I, on sudden impulse, reached for the nightstand. I had to look around a bit, but eventually I found a condom in one of the drawers. Derek looked up at me, hovering over him; he was wide-eyed, confused, and turned on.

“Brae—” he started but I did not have time for that. Opening the condom, I did my best to apply it on him. “Braeden, I was gonna…”I placed a kiss on the corner of his mouth, working my way towards his ear.

“That can wait…can I ride you first? I mean, please, Derek?” I asked in my breathiest voice, looking him directly in the eye. Before letting him answer, I placed myself over him, trying to get myself into position. The way he slid into me was almost effortless; we both sighed at the feeling of fullness. I stood still for a second, moaning a little bit, relishing in the moment.

“Oh, fuck, yes.” I heard Derek finally answer as I started to shift my weight. I smiled, placing my hands on his chest with my nails dug in hard.

Derek held my hips as they moved into a rhythm that he tried to join me in. His own hips started to buck upwards in order to meet me. As his hands curled against my ass, I felt him pull back a bit and give it a tiny smack. My hands tightened on his chest. The sensation that went through me was new and exciting. I moaned relentlessly and the way Derek smiled made it seem like he wanted me to make those sounds again.

“Harder.” I instructed quietly. I started scratching his chest as gently as I could help it.

“Does that feel good?” he asked me with his voice all dark and filthy. I nodded. His hand pulled back and smacked again. My back arched as pleasure ran through me.

“Oh God, yes, _Derek_ …” A breathy string of unintelligible curses escaped my lips and landed in his ear, spurring him on.

 “You’re fucking perfect. Jesus Christ, you’re so perfect. Fuck.” Derek murmured and his hand struck again as he started to pick up speed. As I moaned, I couldn’t help but think about how sex had never been like this for me. It had always been straight to the point, in-and-out and with people I never really thought about again. People I met at parties who were nice enough, one kid in my sociology class, just your average one-night-stands. Never people I let give me hickeys. Never people who I thought would ever spank me and make me like it. Never anybody too important. Never people I worried about pleasing.

He flipped us over and placed his finger at my clit for good measure. His stroke was strong, but maddening. He would pound into me one second, watch me almost reach ecstasy and then pull back. I grabbed at his back and started to bite his shoulder around the third time that happened. If my mouth remembered how to talk in that moment, I would have begged him to make me cum and if my mind remembered what rational thought was, I would have started to wonder if his werewolf stamina was going to let me.

“Please Derek,” I managed to squeeze out. “I’m so close, I’m gonna…”

What tipped me over the edge I think was that he looked into my eyes the whole time as he watched me go on my way, falling into an orgasm with my eyes rolled back, letting me know he wasn’t done with me yet.

I think, somewhere in the distance, the door to Derek's apartment jostled, someone might have knocked but he didn't care one bit.


End file.
